Environmentalism! Remember that carry on?

Sh1tbag OToole

This used to be the preserve of 'hippies' and new age oddballs and other groups of eh, smelly people you ignored but during the Celtic Tiger it was starting to grab hold in the mainstream before quickly dieing a death when the monster that is the economy needed to be fed again when the recession started.

For a while it used to be popular to begrudge people or otherwise have a go at them for owning a SUV because of the perceived fuel wastage of driving one of those. So environmentalism provided a convenient stick to bate people better off than yourself but also on the flip side it allowed people living very wasteful lifestyles to feel better about themselves too. They could do carbon offsetting which means you pay some clever entrepreneur's company a few bob and they use some of it to buy some lad in Thailand a shiny new Honda GX-35 engine for his tuk-tuk and replace the old, polluting 2-stroke. The company pockets the rest.

When the Green Party got into power they surely helped to bring environmentalism out of favour as they used just about every environmental problem as an excuse to extort money from ordinary people to put it into the hands of the Government or else shovel-ready pork-barrel projects. Car scrappage scheme, mandatory BER certs, new lower tax for post-08 cars, subsidies for solar panels, septic tank inspections. These were all nice little earners for whoever the Greens and FF were looking out for.

The subsidies were never worth it anyway as an ordinary individual, they were just an excuse for the government to give money to certain "registered installers" and the government would get the money back off you in the long run. If you had a company with a big wind farm you could probably milk them indefinitely but a normal individual always gets screwed in the end. In Belgium they are now looking at charging a €200 annual tax on people who have solar panels so I'm sure that will make its way over here. Things that start off in mainland Europe, good or bad are considered as progress over here.

I'm glad the Greens are gone because some of the stuff the more extreme environmental nuts have downright scary ideas like forcing people to live in cities because they think living in the countryside uses too much resources and putting ridiculous property tax on houses they deem too big or too hard to heat. At least these nuts will have nobody in Government who will listen to them. There were also alarmist mad scientists who insisted that if we didn't build a supermassive sprinkler system in the Atlantic to spray water into the air we'd all be DOOMED before long or that we are inches away from the global warming "point of no return" where the planet irreversibly heats up to boiling point and beyond.

So what started off as hippies wanting to save the whales eventually just became an excuse for taxing people or taking their money through a government supported private company and restricting their behaviour. It is a shame really because I would be interested in clean energy technology and what have you but not the gobshite political movement that follows it. As soon as you mention solar panels now to someone they think of some jumped up young lad landing up to the front door with shiny brochures and promises of subsidies, trying to get them to part with their money

taytothief

Who do you expect to read all that ****e?

NuckingFacker

The name has it - Enviro Mental.

catallus

What I want to know is where the hell is all this Global Warming they promised us!!

Sh1tbag OToole

taytothief wrote: »

Who do you expect to read all that ****e?

tayto lover

The Queen of England

I once made a hat out of dried cow poo. I called it "The Pat Hat".

AnonoBoy

Is this just a rant to try and defend yourself for that time you were caught sh*tting in a river?

Luap

No wonder your nickname is ****bag.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Good post OP.

1865

Nice trolling there. I'd give it an eight out of ten.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

1865 wrote: »

Nice trolling there. I'd give it an eight out of ten.

I wouldn't.

ballsymchugh

dan boyle doesn't know what to tweet.

The Backwards Man

I read as far as 'This'

Jimoslimos

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

When the Green Party got into power they surely helped to bring environmentalism out of favour as they used just about every environmental problem as an excuse to extort money from ordinary people to put it into the hands of the Government or else shovel-ready pork-barrel projects. Car scrappage scheme, mandatory BER certs, new lower tax for post-08 cars, subsidies for solar panels, septic tank inspections. These were all nice little earners for whoever the Greens and FF were looking out for.

Wow! Surprise surprise that governments would use dream up of any excuse to extort money from the population. Property tax instead anyone?

squod

The Green Party- a great bunch of lads shitehawks

gutteruu

To be fair, something should be done. But I guess they see it as taxing us will save the world and make them a few quid. Its the BS ideas they have that annoy me though. They want us all to drive electric cars....powered by burning peat bogs!! Stupidity! Lets all scrap our perfect cars and replace them with a brand new toyota prius made of 2 tonnes of acid batteries! Where is the logic!

tony007

Ya, bloody environmentalism and the Greens. Who did they think they were, trying to bring in proper planning laws and trying to forward policies which would help stop the world going down the sh!tter?
Thank God we can go back to the same consumption attitude we had previously.

Cody Pomeray

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

This used to be the preserve of 'hippies' and new age oddballs and other groups of eh, smelly people you ignored but during the Celtic Tiger it was starting to grab hold in the mainstream before quickly dieing a death when the monster that is the economy needed to be fed again when the recession started.

It was "starting to grab hold"?

Lets check that...

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/pubs/pdf/eurobarometer/factsheets/EB752%20FS%20ENV%20IE%20(EN).pdf

• 72% of Irish people feel the Government is not doing enough to use natural resources efficiently
• 1% of Irish people feel the Government is doing too much to use natural resources efficiently
• 94% of Irish people identify the environment as being personally important to them
• 70% of Irish people say they will be prepared to spend more to secure environmentally friendly products.

kneemos

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

It was "starting to grab hold"?

Lets check that...

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/pubs/pdf/eurobarometer/factsheets/EB752%20FS%20ENV%20IE%20(EN).pdf

• 72% of Irish people feel the Government is not doing enough to use natural resources efficiently
• 1% of Irish people feel the Government is doing too much to use natural resources efficiently
• 94% of Irish people identify the environment as being personally important to them
• 70% of Irish people say they will be prepared to spend more to secure environmentally friendly products.

People are genuinely concerned,it's the enviromentalists with their wacky ideas and dire predictions that put people off.

Jimoslimos

kneemos wrote: »

People are genuinely concerned,it's the enviromentalists with their wacky ideas and dire predictions that put people off.

Most of the "dire predictions" don't come from the environmentalists but rather the sensationalist media.

squod

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

It was "starting to grab hold"?

Lets check that...

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/pubs/pdf/eurobarometer/factsheets/EB752%20FS%20ENV%20IE%20(EN).pdf

• 72% of Irish people feel the Government is not doing enough to use natural resources efficiently
• 1% of Irish people feel the Government is doing too much to use natural resources efficiently
• 94% of Irish people identify the environment as being personally important to them
• 70% of Irish people say they will be prepared to spend more to secure environmentally friendly products.

In fairness I'm all for green issues. Would absolutely never vote green though. Not ever.

seamus

The reason environmentalism appears to have disappeared is because it's now mainstream. It's no longer cool, it just makes bloody sense.

Climate change is an issue, but tbh there's fnck all we can do about it here in Ireland. We're relatively low-polluting, and so long as the smoke belching behemoths of the USA and China continue to ignore environmental concerns, then getting an extra 1% efficiency out of your gas boiler is about as effective as using a sieve to clean up the atlantic.

Major concern at the moment though is bees. Yes, that's right, bees. The importance of bees to our existence really cannot be underestimated. Practically all animal life, including us, is dependent on the existence of plants. And a huge proportion of those plants are dependent on bees to procreate.

No bees, means a huge proportion of plants disappear, which means we disappear too. Now, we could probably figure it out for a little while, plants seeds ourselves, come up with ways of spreading pollen sans bees. But we can't do it all. Over time as more and more plant species die off, the ecological systems of which they are an integral part start to break down and we get less and less return for more and more effort in growing crops. Food prices skyrocket and food shortages abound.

There's a lot of noise recently about Monsanto. Usually when you hear the name, it's a conspiracy theory, but in this case it's just a plain old ignorance theory. That is, in Monsanto's relentless pursuit of profit, they have inadvertently, or perhaps just because they don't care, caused a massive drop in the numbers of bees in North America. The bee populations around the world, but most noticeably in north america have been steadily plummeting for years now, but we haven't really been able to put our finger on it. It seems that pesticides used on crops are apparently killing the bees.

Yes, organic food is small, expensive and goes off quickly, but it would appear that there's actually a good reason for buying organic beyond some vague hippy crap about pesticides poisoning you or mind control.

It's also worth pointing out that environmentalism isn't so much about "saving the trees" for the sake of it. Even if we were to wipe ourselves off the planet along with half of the other species, in 100 million years the planet will be lush and plentiful again and we'll not even be a footnote in geology. Any new evolution of sentient species or passing alien craft will never even know we were here.

Environmentalism is about saving the planet for our sake. If we **** it up, we die, and we're gone. Game Over.

I Heart Internet

Anthropogenic climate change
Ozone depletion (thankfully this is now being stabilised and reversed)
Loss of biodiversity we didn't even know we had
Deforestation
Persistant Organic Pollutants in the human breast milk.

These are all real concerns, much as the OP would like to scoff at them.

If something hadn't been done about ozone depleting substances, by 2050 we'd have seen tens of millions more cataracts and skin cancers in humans, not to mention the harm to plants and animals. Thankfully, this is one of the few global environmental problems that has been properly addressed.

Climate change has the potential to disrupt whole nations, economies, environments and societies.

Do we really want to ignore these problems because they're not fashion of the month?

kneemos

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Anthropogenic climate change
Ozone depletion (thankfully this is now being stabilised and reversed)
Loss of biodiversity we didn't even know we had
Deforestation
Persistant Organic Pollutants in the human breast milk.

These are all real concerns, much as the OP would like to scoff at them.

If something hadn't been done about ozone depleting substances, by 2050 we'd have seen tens of millions more cataracts and skin cancers in humans, not to mention the harm to plants and animals. Thankfully, this is one of the few global environmental problems that has been properly addressed.

Climate change has the potential to disrupt whole nations, economies, environments and societies.

Do we really want to ignore these problems because they're not fashion of the month?

Oyone levels are cyclical.

Spurtacus

I strolled into the green issue/environmental forum around here once.
The big debate centred around having more than one bin companies working your estate outweighs any benefit of recycling in the first place due to extra diesel usage involved.
I look forward to the day when something like that can be high up on my agenda.

Green issues found that god shaped hole left by secularisation, people crave guilt & need to be admonished by a higher power.

IM0

didnt see that one, was that the one before up the kyber pass?

Zillah

Spurtacus wrote: »

Green issues found that god shaped hole left by secularisation, people crave guilt & need to be admonished by a higher power.

This seems like a bit of a leap. Environmentalism is definitely a luxury of the West, but I'm not sure about the God bit...

kneemos

Spurtacus wrote: »

I strolled into the green issue/environmental forum around here once.
The big debate centred around having more than one bin companies working your estate outweighs any benefit of recycling in the first place due to extra diesel usage involved.
I look forward to the day when something like that can be high up on my agenda.

Green issues found that god shaped hole left by secularisation, people crave guilt & need to be admonished by a higher power.

Better recycled than dumped?

I Heart Internet

kneemos wrote: »

Oyone levels are cyclical.

Meh. And single sentence responses are rarely helpful.

http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/process.html

Sergeant

One of my great 'Celtic Tiger' era memories was driving a classic Mercedes petrol-guzzler with huge emissions and a noisy engine past former Green Party minister Eamon Ryan as he cycled along in the pouring rain.

Spurtacus

Zillah wrote: »

This seems like a bit of a leap. Environmentalism is definitely a luxury of the West, but I'm not sure about the God bit...

Perhaps I went a tad far, I'm neither a fan of environmentalism nor religion but I see a need in people to be led, green issues rose on the agenda during the affluence of the Celtic Tiger & the growth in secularisation.

Spurtacus

Sergeant wrote: »

One of my great 'Celtic Tiger' era memories was driving a classic Mercedes petrol-guzzler with huge emissions and a noisy engine past former Green Party minister Eamon Ryan as he cycled along in the pouring rain.

Trevor, how could you . . .

hooradiation

Sergeant wrote: »

One of my great 'Celtic Tiger' era memories was driving a classic Mercedes petrol-guzzler with huge emissions and a noisy engine past former Green Party minister Eamon Ryan as he cycled along in the pouring rain.

Well, it's good to see that you've matured as a person and are no longer such a petty shi--- oh, wait.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Spurtacus wrote: »

I strolled into the green issue/environmental forum around here once.
The big debate centred around having more than one bin companies working your estate outweighs any benefit of recycling in the first place due to extra diesel usage involved.
I look forward to the day when something like that can be high up on my agenda.

Green issues found that god shaped hole left by secularisation, people crave guilt & need to be admonished by a higher power.

No, that was the tabloids.

asdfg!

'They haven't gone away you know' :P

I'm all for the environment, recycling, reducing pollution all that. I even felt a bit guilty when I first bought a motorcycle and was worried about it's emissions.:o

But if there's on thing that put me off it when the whole thing was hijacked by the eco warriors and their wacky ideas.

Then there's man mad climate change which has become such an article of faith among many people to the point where if any criticism of it is voiced that they practically foam at the mouth and form lynch mobs for the skeptics. To the point were Carbon Dioxide is actually classified as a pollutant. Tell that to the trees.

The latest scare story to keep us awake is the bee shortage. As usual we're being treated to the usual: 'If something isn't done etc....' and of course some big company is to blame for it all.

Well forgive me if I don't lie awake at night worrying about yet another scare story from the green brigade.

If there's a shortage of bees well let's breed them. A shockingly novel concept don't you think. Maybe the people who look after them could be called...let's see beekeepers. That's an idea. Plus of course everyone will have to pay a bee tax. That's the usual green answer to everything.:mad:

asdfg!

asdfg! wrote: »

Then there's man mad climate change which has become such an article of faith among many people to the point where if any criticism of it is voiced that they practically foam at the mouth and form lynch mobs for the skeptics. To the point were Carbon Dioxide is actually classified as a pollutant. Tell that to the trees.

If there's a shortage of bees well let's breed them. A shockingly novel concept don't you think. Maybe the people who look after them could be called...let's see beekeepers. That's an idea. Plus of course everyone will have to pay a bee tax. That's the usual green answer to everything.:mad:

Are you saying you don't believe in pollution, climate change or global bee decline?

Wibbs

asdfg! wrote: »

The latest scare story to keep us awake is the bee shortage. As usual we're being treated to the usual: 'If something isn't done etc....' and of course some big company is to blame for it all.

Well forgive me if I don't lie awake at night worrying about yet another scare story from the green brigade.

Eh this ain't tie dyed baked hippies saying this, it's researchers on the ground. Bee species are in trouble and this is not good for the ecosystem and very bad for us and our food production. Plus this will cost us in real money terms. We're talking hundreds of billions per year. And it will hit closer to home too. Up in the North the colony collapse has been over 50% of all colonies. I doubt it's very different down south. A mates dad has a few hives and he's lost a third of them to this last year.

If there's a shortage of bees well let's breed them. A shockingly novel concept don't you think. Maybe the people who look after them could be called...let's see beekeepers. That's an idea. Plus of course everyone will have to pay a bee tax. That's the usual green answer to everything.:mad:

Great idea, only it's not working. Beekeepers, you know the "breeders" of bees, they are the ones that are having whole hive die offs and that's in controlled conditions compared to the wild populations. Fcuk knows how wild populations are doing as they're harder to track. As well as the insecticide link there also seems to be a virus and a blood sucking mite involved, a multifactoral attack on bees(though the last two seem to be finishing off already weakened colonies).

davet82

don't worry, sure it will be grand lads

Spurtacus

Nobody every thinks of blue issues, or red issues for that matter, yellow issues don't even get a look in, there is a huge inequity here.

seamus

Wibbs wrote: »

Great idea, only it's not working. Beekeepers, you know the "breeders" of bees, they are the ones that are having whole hive die offs and that's in controlled conditions compared to the wild populations. Fcuk knows how wild populations are doing as they're harder to track. As well as the insecticide link there also seems to be a virus and a blood sucking mite involved, a multifactoral attack on bees(though the last two seem to be finishing off already weakened colonies).

What will probably happen in the short term (in the EU at least) is an EU-wide ban or at least restriction on the use of pesticides for a set period of years, to see if we can get a handle on the bee populations.

Naturally this will be seen by farmers and whingers as EU nanny-stating and interfering, and in order to prevent the price of food from exploding there'll need to be yet more farming subsidies to offset the lower crop yields.

Like most ecological issues, this is one where the producer and the end consumer have created a debt through many decades of better living, but now it's time to pay the piper.
The problem is that farmers only see crop yields and consumers only see prices, so even if we succeed in recovering the bee population, the morons of this world will only see an interfering EU that's robbing us of our rights, or somesuch nonsense. As people and societies we are generally incapable of making short-term sacrifices for long-term improvements. We always want immediate improvements regardless of the long-term implications.

tin79

NuckingFacker wrote: »

The name has it - Enviro Mental.

It has it even more if you spell it properly.

kneemos

Last time I saw a bee he was ready for a fight,angry feckers.

squod

Wibbs wrote: »

. Beekeepers, you know the "breeders" of bees, they are the ones that are having whole hive die offs and that's in controlled conditions compared to the wild populations. Fcuk knows how wild populations are doing as they're harder to track.

Made some space for them in my garden. Not especially them, but suitable like.

Leave some ground alone through the summer months. Bumblebees will create nests in undisturbed compost heaps or underneath hedgerows

.


We could all make bee hotels. Gonna bee all the rage next year IMO. Good website called foxleas .com all about this kind of thing.

http://www.foxleas.com/bee_house.htm

--Kaiser--

kneemos wrote: »

Better recycled than dumped?

Not necessarily. It makes sense to recycle some things, metal and glass mostly. But if it costs more (in energy and money) to process this recycled stuff than make it in the first place, then it doesn't make much sense.

Good Penn and Teller episode on recycling actually

My uncle told me about a mine he used to work at in Oz. Once they mine was no longer financially viable, they sold the space in the mines as dumping grounds. It produces so much methane that they use this to generate electricity and pump it back into the grid. That's clever, but it probably wouldn't be classed as 'environmental'

Mr Whirly

Driving a jeep or a SUV when you live in the burbs makes you an automatic gee bag. No exceptions.

--Kaiser--

Mr Whirly wrote: »

Driving a jeep or a SUV when you live in the burbs makes you an automatic gee bag. No exceptions.

I agree but probably for different reasons than you.

Jeeps/4x4s (who the hell calls them SUVs in this country?) have an unnecessarily high centre of gravity, making them more likely to roll over, if you need to go off-road regularly then that's a different story.
Similarly they are unnecessarily heavy, making more dangerous in collisions.

Wibbs

squod wrote: »

Made some space for them in my garden. Not especially them, but suitable like.

I'd love to claim I've done the same S as my garden is an effin bee and wildlife sanctuary, but that's down to me being a lazy git and it's run amok with wildness.

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

I agree but probably for different reasons than you.

Jeeps/4x4s (who the hell calls them SUVs in this country?) have an unnecessarily high centre of gravity, making them more likely to roll over, if you need to go off-road regularly then that's a different story.
Similarly they are unnecessarily heavy, making more dangerous in collisions.

Never mind the tiny women(and men, but mostly the ladies( who insist on driving them when they can't see over the effin steering wheel. *breathe* :mad::D

ScumLord

seamus wrote: »

The reason environmentalism appears to have disappeared is because it's now mainstream. It's no longer cool, it just makes bloody sense.

Good old Seamus, only one line into your post and you've already earned your thanks.

The fact is we're living in a world that's been changed by environmentalism. Our cars are way more efficient than they were 10 years ago, the factories that make the cars are more efficient, our homes are full of products that are more efficient, we don't pollute as much on an individual basis, the small roads I used to drive down that would be lined with rubbish are gone (and the people that were responsible for that pollution were the traveling community, so even they have changed).

By all accounts environmentalism worked and we're suffering the consequences. Of course it's not really enough but how else do you force people to change other than to hit their pockets? You can't convince someone to do the right thing if it puts them out.

kneemos

ScumLord wrote: »

Good old Seamus, only one line into your post and you've already earned your thanks.

The fact is we're living in a world that's been changed by environmentalism. Our cars are way more efficient than they were 10 years ago, the factories that make the cars are more efficient, our homes are full of products that are more efficient, we don't pollute as much on an individual basis, the small roads I used to drive down that would be lined with rubbish are gone (and the people that were responsible for that pollution were the traveling community, so even they have changed).

By all accounts environmentalism worked and we're suffering the consequences. Of course it's not really enough but how else do you force people to change other than to hit their pockets? You can't convince someone to do the right thing if it puts them out.

All due to tax and costcutting and the rubbish is still there.

ScumLord

kneemos wrote: »

All due to tax and costcutting and the rubbish is still there.

Exactly, the governments imposed taxes on big engined cars and the manufacturers produced low emission cars. That's it working.

There's no where near the amount of illegally dumped rubbish there was 10 years ago, there just isn't.

squod

ScumLord wrote: »

The fact is we're living in a world that's been changed by environmentalism. Our cars are way more efficient than they were 10 years ago,

New cars = new pollution for other nations.

ScumLord wrote: »

There's no where near the amount of illegally dumped rubbish there was 10 years ago, there just isn't.

Fair enough. But we're again just exporting lots of our pollution.

http://www.blacksmithinstitute.org/


Taxing your way to 'greenness' only works for people who can afford that tax. So essentially it's a way of penalising people for being poor. Cars/goods are cheaper if they're environmentally less friendly.
Under that system, the environment loses when the populations wealth decreases.